The news came over the TV late this afternoon. He was 95, so it cannot be called an untimely death, but he will be missed. Mandela saved his country from a bloody racial war. I don't understand how he did it, but it happened.
In the 1960s and 70's, a small white minority ran South Africa to suit them selves. Blacks were disadvantaged at law, herded into ugly slums, denied a decent education or a decent job. The whites owned all the property, all the companies, ran the army, the police, the courts, the government, everything. The whites had everything except numbers. The white minority was being as nasty and unpleasant as possible, and the majority blacks had had it up to there. They formed the African National Congress, were getting weapons and organizing for a war of extermination. They had the numbers and it looked like South Africa would explode into civil war that would go on until one side or the other was exterminated.
Working inside this powder keg, Mandela somehow convinced the ruling whites to open the country to free elections and allow themselves to be voted out of power. And, after obtaining power, Mandela was able to prevent the now empowered black majority from wrecking an awful vengeance on the white minority.
I still do not understand how Mandela pulled off this miracle, but he did. It saved his country.
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